Pagan's father, Julian Diaz, was one of many people who tried to end Castro's rule.

"He was totally against his views and my dad fought against the government," Pagan said. "That was his dream, to beat the man down -- the old bearded man."

Diaz was unsuccessful and was captured as a political prisoner.

"Castro broke his body in a lot of ways, tried to break his mind and I think he may have succeeded in some ways to break my father," Pagan remembered.

Pagan didn't meet her father until the United States government helped get him released, when she was 15.

"He came off the plane and I was the first one to recognize him, the man I had never met. I was the first one to say, 'Look there's my dad.' Here I was this 15-year-old girl meeting her father for the first time," Pagan said.

Experiences like these are why Pagan is grateful to live in America.

"I could hate or love Trump, I could hate or love Barack Obama but I can say anything I want and I'm not going to jail," Pagan said. "That doesn't happen in Cuba. People are taken out in the middle of the night and shot and killed."

Pagan said that kind of violence will continue to happen in Cuba, despite Castro's death.

"The government that he built is still there and he's taught Cuban children from school to hate Americans, to hate the United States, that we are the evil power," Pagan said. "Just the person Castro died, not his idealism --that's still alive.

"When will that end? Who knows."

There are those mourning Castro's death, some are remembering him as a father figure and friend. Cuba's government declared nine days of national mourning.